Chapter 38
The ice berg with their corracles on top of it that the party have been travelling on has been sailing along through the current's of the Water-Way under Thaylorn's direction for the last five days. The party's make shift camp here on the ice-berg has taken on a pretty well built look by now thanks to Kier's help and input but there is still no sign of land.
Raziel watches the horizon quietly as the days go on and he checks the supplies on occasion. Right now though the man is pacing, wandering back and forth while he keeps looking off and then finally turns towards Thaylorn, "do you think we are even going in the right direction??"
Penny reclines in one of the ice-locked boats, her duffle serving as makeshift pillow/seat-back, feet propped up on one gunwale, and eyes, shadowed under the brim of her helm, tracing Raziel as he paces back and forth. Hard to imagine she's comfortable doing this in her armor, but it is evidently so, as evidenced by the lack of shifting, as one might expect if she were uncomfortable. She sighs, rubbing an eye with one finger, "He's got a point; it's been days, and there's been nothing on any horizon worth mentioning. I mean, no disrespect, Mister Thaylorn, seeing as this *is* your back yard, but any idea when we'll get... anywhere?" Talen has busied himself for the past five days shoring up the iceberg, forming foot-high walls to keep waves out, setting up a hardened middle section where a fire could be built, though that might require the sacrifice of one of the boats. But he's tired, and a little cranky, for he's not gotten much sleep at all. Even on the larger mass of the iceberg, he still feels queasy from sea sickness. He sits up from where lays in one of the boats, and stretches, joints popping and cracking loudly. "Mmmmph. Ow. Erg, as long as we head east, we shall come upon our destination. I do not know how long, but it shouldn't be too much longer, I would guess."
Vazkor has kept himself fairly occupied, having brought a pocket novel that he's been reading, and even trying his hand at some fishing from the edge of the ice float with a makeshift fishing rod- really just a string and hook tied to the end of his Katana sheath-... Though having also made sure to keep an eye out for any sea monsters while doing so. Just returning from one of those attempts, in fact, he strolls up where their camp is situated, whistling to himself... Only to pause as he hears Raziel's question, and he looks around at the others to see what the answer might be. Soon hming a bit at Talen.
"Even if this is my 'home' realm, this is actually the first time I've ever been here." Thaylorn offers in return to penny as he dips one of his hands into the water. He has taken to sitting rather near the water at the very edge of the iceberg "But well, we're getting much closer than you'd think, in fact, it feels as if we're almost there." The Imp adds, standing to move nearer the center of the iceberg before pointing eastwards.
As Thaylorn speaks and moves to the east and points everyone can just about make out a dark brownish smudge on the horizon, as they ice-berg drifts closer it starts to take on form and shape, the colour shifting to more of a green. It is definatley an island of some sort. You page, "You can see there is also a structure on top of it. It is like a big green hill rising out of the ocean with a tower on top of it." to Penny.
Raziel's eyes narrow alittle, his eyes focusing in on that smudge. A glance is given to Talen and Thaylorn before he nods quietly in responce, "it lookslike the two of you were correct." The man looks back again towards the rise before he walks over to offer the armoroed lady a hand up. "Then we should prepare. We don't know what will wait us when we get to the shore. Penny hrms and frowns slightly, a part of her not liking the answer Talen and Thaylorn give, but there's nothing for it, and she'll just have to live with the wait and the idea of "eventually". Which turns out to be a much shorter span of time than she feared it might be as Raziel points out land on the horizon, just the thing her boredom required! She climbs to her feet, looking off in the eastern horizon, squinting slightly and a hand adding to the shade given to her eyes by her helm, "Well, there's a tower... Hopefully something more than just wildlife?" She turns to her duffle, starting to situate her gear in preparation for landfall, though that itself is probably still at least a bit of a wait away, "I just hope that whatever's there, if anything, is nonviolent."
Talen grunts and steps out of the boat, stretching once more and doing a little jog in place to get the circulation going. He grins at the imp, "Well, I hope your home realm has given you a good first impression at least. It /is/ an awful lot of water..." He glances around at the expanse of water, and notes too the smudge of colour in the distance. He moves to stand next to Raziel, nodding slightly. "I think we should get everything ready to go. We don't know what or who we'll encounter, we want to be ready to abandon iceberg if necessary, yeh?" The viera moves to the boat he'd been sleeping in at times, and moves it into position for easy maneuvering. Pursing his lips, the viera calls out, "I'm going to use a bit of fire magic for a moment. Just a warning..." The summoner concentrates for a few moment, and a wee puff of fire starts to melt down the small wall he constructed to keep waves off.
Vazkor arches his brow as he turns towards where the Imp is pointing, soon squinting his eyes a bit as he peers at that smudge of land... Glancing at Penny then, he hmms, and remarks, "A tower?" Before shrugging some, and actually grinning as he swings his 'fishing rod' off his shoulder where it was resting, and starts untying the string from the end, freeing up his sword to be secured at his side once more. Looking at the others as he does so, and adding, "I'm not really counting on anything non violent, myself. We're starting to get close. That usually means things will try to stop us."
"There's much more down below than you or I could possibly imagine, not yet anyways." Thaylorn chimes in response to Talen with a faint grin "And I'm sure as long as we're careful, and don't seem threatening whatever locals there will hopefully not try to eat us, maybe." He shrugs slightly and goes about preparing the few things he has for a venture onto land namely his swords once more.
As the party makes preparations to debark they continue to approach the tor and the sea-bed grows shallow. Be the end of the third hour it is only a few feet deep and their ice-berg starts carving a path through a massive field of curled green stems as the sun sets. Once the sun is down and the stars are coming up the stems uncurl, revealing beautiful flowers that seem to drink in the starlight and glow with an etherial light. The flowers are clear and gleam and ahead in the distance is the brilliant lonely Tor. The star-lillies are beautiful and as they progress deeper music rises around them all, a mesmerizing and entrancing melody that slowly but surely starts to lure the party into a hypnotic daze, it is almost impossible to resist. Dust succumbs almost straight away and for the others the song is everything, the music is all that matters as it continues to rise.
Raziel tilts his head and then his hand lifts up to rub the bag at his chest. He looks at Thaylorn then and his brown lifts before he looks around at the others, "a siren's song.." The man shakes his head a little bit before he starts to walk over and shake people, trying to wake them, though he also checks on EM to see how the mongoose is faring.
Penny doesn't seem to hear Raziel , the mouse swaying slowly in time with the song, ears drooping, eyes half-closed, smiling and slightly slack-jawed, and her polearm held loosely in one hand, in danger of falling to the ice under her feet. If she's aware of anything at all aside from the music, it certainly doesn't show.
Talen's eyes go vacant for the briefest of moments, before he blinks and gives his head a shake. He looks over at Raziel, "Oh, is that what that is?" He looks around and hmms. "I suppose it would be bad form to set fire to all those flowers, wouldn't it?" Sighing, the viera looks at the others. "I'll carry Penny if you want, if you could carry my pack, and maybe her polearm? I figure if we can get away from the flowers, she'll probably snap out of it, yes?" The viera steps over to the mouse, and grins wryly. "I sure hope you will forgive me." He stoops down and wraps an arm around the woman's waist, hefting her up upon a shoulder, and after a moment to balance himself properly, he strides off the iceberg into the shallows, heading for shore.
Talen eyes go vacant for the briefest of moments, before he blinks and gives his head a shake. He looks over at Raziel, "Oh, is that what that is?" He looks around and hmms. "I suppose it would be bad form to set fire to all those flowers, wouldn't it?" Sighing, the viera looks around at the others. "Maybe we should sit them down? Is there some way to counter this? It will be all bad for our heroes if Ultimecia arrived to find us dancing like drooling idiots to this music."
Vazkor swaaaays as well, a goofy sort of smile on his face, and his eyes distant as he's fallen thoroughly under the siren spell, the man actually quietly humming along to the magical song, seeming to be quite enjoying himself, all told.
The Imp looks about in awe as the flowers bloom beneath the light of the stars and with the rising of music he turns his attention back to the others in time to see it's effect upon them. "Uhm, Raz." He begins, hand going to a pouch at his side for a moment "What's going on, think the music is coming from the flowers?" He questions, gaze going to Penny in particular with a faint amount of worry. "If you can keep her from falling I can try to push us through all this." Is added in there as Thaylorn moves to the back of the iceberg to give the iceberg a boost towards shore at Raziel's approval. "Don't burn them, either." He quickly adds with a glance to Talen whom doesn't seem quite as effected.
Hmm Talen REALLY shouldn't have made that comment about Ultimecia attacking... because the coruscating ball of dark purple energy that flickers into life and starts to boil and coil around itself ahead of the raft doesn't look friendly. It tracks the ice-berg as Thaylorn thrusts them forward with speed toward the tor even as Raziel starts to communicate with the coins. Which is about when Grievier leaps out of the ball of energy and with a roar slams into the ice-berg, claws raking into the ice as he lashes out with a claw to knock Penny backwards into one of the corracles! The small boat cracks in two under the armour weighted mouse-lady but things are a bit... desperate looking as the giagantic beast of Ultimecia roars its defiance at the others!
Raziel's eyes widen and he mutters a curse while thrusting his hand into the bag. He Quickly pulls out three of the coins he has at random and first shoves one into Vazkor's hand before he gives a second to Talen while running by him to leap into the boat after Penny and start pulling her out while the third is pressed into her hand... the movements coming quickly while he repeatedly mutters, "shitshitshit," over and over again.
Penny is thrown forcefully into the boat, and while she doesn't weigh a whole lot by comparison to larger folk, the addition of inertia from being swiped more than makes up for it as her impact damages the boat in question. Her short trip and sudden stop leaves her none the worse for wear, though she's still completely mesmerized... Until Raziel presses a coin into her palm, at which point she snaps suddenly and abruptly back to awareness. A quick look at where she is, then up at Raziel, "What- How did-" Of course, Grievier making all that noise forestalls her questioning, and she blinks, quickly climbing to her feet, retrieving her poleaxe, and leveling it at the beast. She's still catching up, mentally, but... There are priorities. And Grievier is evidently high on that list, understandably.
Talen blinks at the coin thrust into his hand. "Oh no, the last time I used one of these, we got... holy hells, what the heck is that?" The viera edges towards Penny and Raziel, standing between them and the beast while Penny recovers. He adopts a crouched stance and mutters several long words of magic, a gout of flame erupting from his outstretched hand and streaking towards Grievier.
Vazkor snaps out of that siren's call the moment the coin is pushed into his hand, the man blinking, and looking around confusedly, "... Huh?" Seeming lost for a second. But then reality comes rushing back as his gaze falls upon the roaring Griever, his fuzzy wolf ears twitching at the sound, and his eyes narrowing, "... Right." And with that, finely honed combat instincts spring into full gear, and as he still holds the coin in one hand, the other is quick to drag that Katana from its sheath, the cobald blade crackling with blue electricity, before the man simply charges forward even as Talen's fire spell zips past him, "Didn't you learn you lesson before, beast?" The man growls, even as he deftly arcs that blade in quick succession towards Ultimecia's monster [Pummel]
Having turned his attention back to pushing the group's chunk of ice towards land, Thaylorn doesn't take note of Grievier's appearance until the iceberg is slammed into, causing the Imp to fall back from where he was sitting again "Oh did we hit land already?!" He attempts before the beast roars out it's hatred towards them "Nope guess not!" He quickly diverts his attention from the moving of their craft to the attempted destruction of this creature, maybe once and for all. First order of business, getting the creature away from the rest of the group! Raising both his arms he attempts to summon forth the water beneath the craft to swell beneath the creature as to push it away from the rest of the party, and maybe back into the water itself without effecting the rest of the group!
FWOOMPF! Goes Talen's fire that launches out and roars over the beast.... Grievier turns its head, seemingly unaffected by this and ROARS, launching a sphere of Purple Energy at the Summoner. Thankfully for Talen he is able to hurl himself out of the way of the ball of gravity magic with ease. Then Vazkor is upon the beast, his sword a whirling blur! One... two... three slices at the beasts body and three rather unhelpful sounding "Clangs" as the blades do nothing... just strike it's body and cause flashes of white light to burst forth from where the blades connected. That should quite frankly be impossible. It turns its head and looks down at Vazkor. "Yes.... I did learn...." it growls as it rakes at the man with his claws. Which thankflly Vazkor is able to dodge as they slam into the raft and shatter the ice, causing large cracks to lift up along it! Thaylorn's wave thankfully has an effect, it pushes Griever back by about a foot but the beast leaps off the ice into the water which comes up to just below his stomach now as the sea bed has continued to grow shallower the closer to the tor they get. You page, "Sorry about that! You got such awesome rolls I felt bad about that >.> But Ultimecia is cheating big time...." to Vazkor.
Raziel mutters to Penny and Talen in a low voice, "don't use them, don't lose them.. They're what's keeping you awake." His eyes are upon the Griever though and as Thaylorn's wave sends it back and it leaps into the water after it's retort to Vazkor the mage yells, "Did you learn? Then let us see how well you did!" The man begins summoning up the power around him as his wings start to glisten with lightning energy. The electricity arcs over his golden wings and down to his hands before he releases a torrent of the power, aiming it not only at the creature, but at the water around it, knowing how conductive water can be to such things.
KRAAAAKOOOOOOOM! Raziel's Thundara spell charges into the water with a mighty effect! The lightning races through the water causing Star Lillies to explode in a radius up to two hundred yards away! The ice-berg cracks and chunks of it fall off and Grievier shivers and growls and turns its eyes to Raziel and in that deep gravelly bestial voice whispers, "Ooooh tingly....."
Penny grimaces as the raft of ice is damaged and starts to shatter, shifting her feet to keep from falling as the footing becomes a bit more treacherous. A glance at Raziel, then down to one hand, where she has the coin held between her palm and the haft of the polearm, and she nods, taking a second to tuck the coin away to somewhere safer as Raziel charges up and releases lightning into the water, the result causing the ice raft to break up a bit more. She watches the effect of Raziel's spell, and having seen the results of Vazkor's more physical attempt just seconds before, her ears droop, her options for what she can do becoming more and more limited. A whine under her breath, followed by an exasperated curse, and she spins her poleaxe in her hands so that the anti-armor spike on the back of the polearm's axe head is brought to bear instead of the axe blade itself, and she brings the polearm back completely, the head nearly touching the water off the edge of the raft opposite where Grievier stands, muttering, "Here goes nothin'.." Then, with a step forward, she spins her body with a sharp, loud, and piercing yell, building up torque and momentum before her spin brings the polearm up, and then down, in a vicious overhead swing that aims the spike at Grievier's head. (Heavy Blow)
Penny's pole-arm is lunged forward toward the beasts' head, he turns it and stare down the length of the weapon's haft as it slams against his fore-arm. There is a spark of light as with Vazkor's strikes and the beast growls threateningly at Penny, yawns its maw wide and bites down on the weapon and despite Penny's quick reflexes the mouse doesn't let go in time to stop the beast tossing her and her pole-arm about seven feet across the water were she lands in a SPLASH in the ocean! Thankfully it isn't very deep right now but still that splash down hurt!
Talen blinks as his spell, Vazkor's blades and Raziel's spell seemingly bounce off of the beast, not affecting it in the slightest. With Raziel's voice echoing in his mind, 'Don't use it...', the viera sighs and closes his eyes to concentrate. "Easier to ask for forgiveness..." he whispers, "Gemini, please heed my call, and help me tame the beast attacking my friends. Guild my blizzard spell, help me encase the beast in ice, to slow it down, to numb its mind." The coin in Talen's hand flares and jerks free from the boys grip and rises up, swelling in size and encompassing a shimmering figurfe made from starlight who stands on the raft, his hands on his hips glaring at Talen. "How dare you! Who do you think you are? You are not the Master Raziel, nor are you anyone I have given leave to call upon me! The affrontary!" He turns and stares up at Grievier and blinks, "Oh my... erm... Lord Raziel! The Imp! The Imp is the key you are in the....." he is cut off as Grievier LUNGES forward and snaps up the Gemini coin and.... GULP swallows it.....
Vazkor jumps back from the would be attack, landing on one of the bigger chunks of ice from the float as it starts to break apart, the man pausing, sword still out, and peering at the big beast, looking for an opening of somekind, before being momentarily distracted by the speaking star figure.
"So you've gotten a bit more resiliant huh! Nothing we can't take care of." Thaylorn calls out as he shifts his weight slightly to avoid being knocked off the cracking and unstable iceberg. Looks like any sort of direct attack seems pretty much ineffective, thinking briefly he comes up with something else! Gathering his energy once again he pulls at the shallow water to form a sphere of water directly overtop the beast's head! Thaylorn's sure the fiend has to breath and all. Although he attempts to cast the spell, it's rather half-hearted as well as Talen attempts to summon forth Gemni and the events quickly following with the coins short departure.
Thaylorn's sphere of water wobbles a bit as it zooms in toward Grievier's head, the distraction of the beast swallowing the Gemini makes Thay's spell miss it's target completly but Grievier jerks back and growls and quickly draws a deep breath before the globe encases its head completly. Gemini's warning however seems to give the imp a new idea and the sphere of water breaks apart and lunges out toward all his companions! Penny's pole-arm and Vazkor's and Kier swords are quickly engulfed in a shimmering, moving, flowing field of water where as Raziel and Talen get a rush of water wrapped about their shoulders and arms, it's energy feeding into their mana.... empowering them with its strength and energy, insight into how to twist their spells to flow through the water more effectivly flickering through their mind. Kier takes one look at the watery energy wrapped about his arrows and draws and looses! The arrow shoots over and embeds itself into Griever's upper body which makes him roar and jerk back in surprise even as Kier looses several more arrows in quick succession! The game... it would appear.... is on!
As Talen speaks those words and Gemini comes to life Raziel turns towards Talen, immediately shouting, "NO!" His hand outstretches and for a moment it looks like he's about to launch a spell at the summoner. It never happens though as Gemini bellows his outrage and the aegyl looks back at him in time to see Griever devour the coin bound spirit. The sound he lets out can't really be called a scream or a yell, but a cry of pure frustration and rage wrapped up together breaks forth from the golden winged man. As the water wraps around him and the magical knowledge is imparted he snarls and twists his hand while ice begins forming over his wings and then breaking off, launching in chunks at the monster before them.
Raziel is indeed upset! Ice streams through the air and slams into the beast, piercing his skin and making him jerk backwards and howl as those chunks of ice crash into him with fury! )
Penny grimaces as her blow has about as much effect as she feared it would, but her expression soon changes to one of wide-eyes surprise, then to something akin to fear as Grievier takes hold of her polearm and uses it as leverage to fling her through the air! The mouse screams as she flies, the sound cut off when she makes a splash-landing in the water a short distance away, the mouse floundering for a moment until she gets her feet under her, leaving her wiping water from her eyes in chest-high water. A moment to get her bearings, and she starts slogging her way back towards the group, and the nearest thing she can use to climb out of the water, be it ice or boat, the templar out of the fight until she can do so, poleaxe, with it's water-enchanted head, held upright and used to help her along through whatever waves there are.
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